This week’s lecture featured the amazing Ethan Hein and oh boy was my mind exploding by the end of the session! 🤯 And I’ll just preface this post by saying that yes, we were discussing Abletone Live and yes, I felt like a fish out of water. Sooo I’m sorry but I unfortunately won’t be able to demonstrate a lot of these techniques that Ethan talked about during the lecture. However, I will make sure to list them for those who may be more familiar with Abletone Live. I have actually complained about my lack of understanding of the program to James and thankfully, after he told me that he ended up just paying for a proper course in order to learn how to use the program, I felt muuuch better. Another student in our class mentioned how he ended up just going through the 4 hour tutorial in order to learn the basics so yes, I wasn’t going to lose sleep over not fully understanding what Ethan was telling us to try out 😅. Nonetheless, he still managed to inspire in me a desire to go and learn how to use Abletone Live and maybe venture more into the world of mash-ups, EDM and general music producing. It really feels like my whole Abletone Live experience was one long journey of self-discovery and if you read my earlier posts, you will see why.

Anyways, before I dwell deeper into the lecturer content, here is a snippet of Ethan’s bio, which btw you can find on his blog site here:

“Ethan Hein is a Doctoral Fellow in music education at New York University, and an adjunct professor of music technology at NYU and Montclair State University. As a founding member of the NYU Music Experience Design Lab, Ethan has taken a leadership role in the development of online tools for music learning and expression, most notably the Groove Pizza. Together with Will Kuhn, he is the co-author of Electronic Music School: Empowering Student Creativity with Ableton Live, forthcoming from Oxford University Press.“

Yes, very impressive indeed. And also, I must have completely forgotten or just never realised but he has developed Groove Pizza, an incredible online learning tool which teachers can use in many creative ways when wanting to teach/play around with drum beats! An app that is definitely worth exploring so check it out!

Going back to the lecturer, Ethan decided to dive straight into some demonstrations and he began by showing us the Vocoder feature in Abletone Live. I personally was not aware of what that was or what it did and in case you are not either, here are some artists who have used it in their music:

Wikipedia (and Ethan) described vocoder as “a category of voice codec that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was invented in 1938 by Homer Dudley at Bell Labs as a means of synthesizing human speech.” Ethan was showing us some tips and tricks on using this feature through some of the Micheal Jackson samples he had ready in his library. The interesting thing about the Abletone vocoder is that it’s not really an audio effect but a synthesizer effect. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite understand this part until Ethan demonstrated on his midi keyboard that he was able to play the modified sample. I still don’t quite understand how that works or how it would be practically applied to music producing but it was definitely a very cool trick 😁.

There were also a few more features that Ethan ended up talking about like warp modes where you can slow down the digital audio. He also mentioned a way of cutting sounds, like drum beats, and having digital audio blackout which can create some very interesting mixes.

However, even though I was struggling through most of the lecture in terms of the technical aspects, it was amazing to hear Ethan’s insight into a number of different topics. He briefly reflected on a past client for whom he ended up producing a country rock album. The problem was that the client wasn’t a very good musician which meant that it took a lot of effects and splicing/cutting in order to make this album sound passable. Ethan concluded the story by saying that as musicians, we need these people in our lives because we still need to earn money. Personally, I’ve thought about this quite often and as violin teacher, many times I feel as if there is only so much I can do for a student who is struggling with the material or in many cases, not even trying. Of course, I will do my best but sometimes I wonder if I were a more established music tutor, would I accept every student that comes my way? It’s hard for me to answer that question but it’s definitely an interesting thought experiment worth examining.

Another interesting point that Ethan brought up was in regards to the way reverb connects to mic-ing different instruments, especially classical instruments. He mentioned the example from The Beatles who were known to experiment in the studio with different effects and recording techniques. During the recording of Eleanor Rigby, Paul McCartney specifically asked for a condenser mic to be put close to the cello f hole; a very unusual practice as classical instruments are usually mic-ed from a distance in order to hear the most out of the instruments’ natural reverb. However, by putting the mic so close, the sound becomes rather harsh and a little more aggressive. Yet, in the context of the song, it ends up working out really good. Such experimentation with sound production can definitely lead to a discovery of new effects so thinking outside the box on certain occasions is definitely a good mindset to hone. Have a listen to Eleanor Rigby and see whether you can notice any differences with the cello sound:

The last thing that I really felt resonated with me was Ethan’s musing on the pop genre’s status in today’s music scene. From a classically trained musician’s perspective, I have to admit to having a certain degree of disdain towards most music which is dominating the music charts. Even so, when Ethan went into details about the intricacies behind music production and all the different innovative ways sounds are being produced, I ended up finding a new respect and appreciation for pop music. I felt my perspective changing especially when he mentioned how in order to have very complex sound production and soundscaping, something’s got to give and in most mass-produced music it will be the harmonic and melodic complexity. This is to ensure the music itself doesn’t sound too busy and overwhelming. So in the end, when we traditional musicians complain about the simplicity oftentimes encountered in popular music, it is really only our untrained ears speaking for us. What we don’t realise is that there is still plenty of complex musical processes but they are not always evident. Thus, it could be safe to say that creating any kind of music is never an easy process and as a future music teacher, I need to make sure to remember that when teaching certain attitudes and values to my students.

Overall, the lecture was extremely enlightening and I thoroughly enjoyed participating in this invigorating class lecture and discussion. What a good way to end a unit that thoroughly surprised me and taught me so much about my own journey as a musician. However, this is not the end. Maybe it’s the end to these particular blog posts, but not to my continues desire to learn more.

I will definitely try to continue using this platform for many other discoveries and pathways I undertake during my teaching and musical career so continue to stay tuned and keep on technologicking! 😊